


Cooler Heads Prevail

by skylite



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Adversaries, AtLA, Avatar the Last Airbender, Other, Redemption, Season 3 Spoilers, Zuko - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 07:30:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4011151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skylite/pseuds/skylite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SPOILERS: For Season 3 of ATLA.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cooler Heads Prevail

**Author's Note:**

> Roku has appeared to people without Aang necessarily going into the Avatar state or otherwise summoning him. 
> 
> I'm a Zutara shipper and it kind of shows here.
> 
> Originally Posted December 2007.

Zuko clenched his teeth and took a deep breath, focusing his eyes on the painting of his uncle Iroh he had hung in his room. There was still a faint rattle in the doorway after Katara had slammed the door. She had screamed at him. She had threatened him. Him. The prince of the Fire Nation! 

And he stopped, blinking. That faint shadow of the angry Zuko was not quite gone yet. It was his wounded pride that objected to the Waterbendrix's display of temper. He took another deep breath. You called her a little peasant, he reminded himself. You hunted and chased her across the world in search of the Avatar. She has a right to be angry. 

Zuko sighed, and ran his hands through his hair, before brushing it back into a queue. He used a bit of leather to tie it back; the Fire Nation clasp had been left behind when he'd confronted his father. Seems confrontation is still part of my destiny, he thought to himself, turning to stare out at the open sky and cliffside visible from his window. 

He knew he was only here by Katara's sufferance. Toph, the Earthbendrix, believed his sincerity. And she looked forward to paying him back in kind for the injury he'd reflexively caused her. Sokka, the one without bending, seemed only interested in the goal Zuko now shared -- defeating the Fire Lord, and ending the war. If that meant strange bedfellows, then so be it. Aang himself had doubted until realizing they had in common an unfortunate tendency to firebend from emotion rather than thought -- and that innocents went harmed when this was allowed to happen. 

But Katara -- her distrust of him ran deeper than the rest. Zuko considered her reaction. She was not normally inclined to displays of passion, or a raised voice. The last time she'd showed either to him before now had been beneath Ba Sing Se. "I thought you'd changed!" Katara had cried, as he'd gone to his sister's side. "I have changed," he'd told her. And he'd meant it. But change is not easy, nor is it immediate. A goal of four years is not abandoned in the heat of one moment. 

He turned and reached for the door handle. It stuck; Katara had slammed it that hard. It was not that difficult to find her, though, even in something the size of the Western Air Temple. Subtle nuances of environment made her presence obvious. The air grew less humid around her. Even so, he approached her with the care and caution one might use approaching a Sabre-Toothed Moose Lion. "Excuse me," he said quietly, and waited. 

She was sitting by the fountain, and turned, startled. "You," she said, voice icy. "Planning to tell us goodbye, then? Rather than show your true colors and face what I'll do to you when that happens?" The ice in her voice was matched by fire in her eyes. Her relaxed posture moved with characteristic fluidity into a stance that indicated if he wanted a fight, he'd get one.

"No," Zuko replied, flatly, and stared at her in silence for a moment, inwardly braced for more fury from her. 

"What do you want?" she asked, biting off the words. 

"I want to tell you that I didn't steal your mother's necklace," he began, speaking slowly, to keep the indignant rage from his voice. He'd told her that once before; but since Ba Sing Se, she had apparently written it off as a lie. "I found it. On one of our prison ships. Lying on the deck. About to blow away into the sea." Wait. Zuko's body gave away the effort it cost him to do so, but he remained silent and still after giving the Avatar's companion this information.

Katara's narrowed eyes widened. Haru, she thought. There were only two occasions during which Katra had set foot aboard a Fire Navy vessel, and the former occasion had been her determined attempt to free Haru's village. Zuko had not been there. She felt her gaze turning backward, but caught herself. You can't trust Zuko, she told herself, and resumed her mistrustful glower.

"I understand why you would think I might," Zuko ventured when Katara simply stared at him. "But what I told you of my honor is true. I wanted to regain it. Stealing ...is ...dishonorable." Color rose in his face as he continued. "I know--" he held up a hand as Katara opened her mouth to protest. "Chasing you, attacking you, trying to capture the Avatar is dishonorable." He lowered his hand and his gaze simultaneously. "I thought only of honor in terms of what my father would think of me, and the goal he gave me to accomplish. I thought of nothing else. I was foolish. And selfish. My uncle tried to teach me better, but I was not ready."

Sokka had told Katara that Iroh had been instrumental in rescuing her from Azula. And when Azula had stricken Aang down in the crystal caves, it had been Iroh who had held Azula -- and Zuko -- off, so she could escape with the injured Aang. Again, she felt her gaze turning toward the memory, and had to force her gaze back to Zuko. The old man seemed level-headed. And dismayed that his nephew would not abandon his quest to capture the Avatar. A good influence? she wondered. Could it be? 

"And you're ready now." The sarcasm was practically palpable.

Zuko's eyes narrowed, and he took a moment to master his expression before raising his face to look at Katara again. "I'm trying to be." He kept his hands at his sides, and then closed his eyes. If Katara meant to attack him while his eyes were closed, he would offer her no resistance. He counted to five; when no attack seemed forthcoming, he opened his eyes again and met her gaze. "I ...know that I have given you a lot of reason to hate me."

"No, really?!" Katara snapped, but her own inner voice reminded her to be calm. She knew she was as capable of great destruction if her temper got away from her. And now, thanks to Hama, she was capable of terrible things even when calm. "Fine. You're admitting things that are news to no one!"

"I know that. Don't you think I know that?!" Zuko took a step forward, hands spread. Katara held her ground, raising her own hands, in a gesture that indicated she was ready to waterbend. The flow of the fountain curved toward her for a second. When Zuko did not take another step, the flow resumed its original path. "And I am here to try and make up for what I've done. For what my family has done. For not seeing and understanding what I should have long ago." 

He took another step forward, and Katara did the same, until Zuko continued, "But there is something you must understand. I did not lie to you about my mother." This so shocked her, that she took a step back, resuming her original position.

"What?"

Zuko lifted both shoulders in a shrug. You have nothing left to lose. You have given up your position. And your arrogance. Tell her the truth. "I've never lied to you, Katara." She bared her teeth at him as her name fell from his lips. "I may have been rash and hurtful, but in the caves of crystal, when I told you that losing our mothers to this war was something we have in common? That was true. My mother woke me, one summer before I turned twelve, and told me goodbye. And to remember who I am. I never saw her again." Zuko turned to stare out at the cliffside, blinking away the sudden tingle behind his eyes that heralded tears. Thinking back to the memory still hurt after all these years, scraped raw again by his last conversation with his father. "She told me to remember who I am, and I forgot. I gave up my own honor by choosing to try to please my father, rather than being my mother's son. And I didn't realize that. When I did act as my heart dictated, I angered my father. So I believed my father could give my honor back." 

Katara's hands lowered slightly as Zuko looked away, then dropped altogether as he continued speaking. "What did you do that angered your father?" If she had to ask herself, Katara would have said she was curious. But the truth was that Zuko had confessed to standing up against the Fire Lord once before. And if he was to be believed now, he would never be welcome in his homeland again; provided this wasn't all a front. Provided Zuko wasn't a spy, sent to infiltrate them, gain their trust. She snapped her head around to stare out at the cliffside. "Did you show compassion? Something he probably considers great weakness?"

"Yes." 

"What?" 

"Yes," Zuko repeated, and then waited for Katara to turn and face him before continuing to speak. "I did what you said. I objected to a cruelty he was visiting on our people. His own soldiers who trusted and loyally served him. He was going to send them to their deaths." 

Katara raised an eyebrow at him. 

"I said it was wrong." Zuko's gaze did not waver from hers. "I spoke out of turn. I was only a visitor to the war room. I'd insulted the general whose plan it was. I'd insulted my father. I'd broken Fire Nation protocol, and for that, there had to be a reckoning. I was told I had to make right for my insolence. I'd expected to have to apologize to the general. But my father declared an Agni Kai on me. Do you know what that is?"

"Yes." Only because that was the one part of Aang's knowledge of the Fire Nation that had not become outlandishly outdated. "A duel of firebenders. An honor match." Katara folded her arms. "Your father declared an Agni Kai on you. Your own father."

"Yes." His stance remained calm, but the emotion in his voice carried even at the low tones he was careful to maintain. "I was thirteen, and I had no idea. I was nowhere near the bender he was. Nowhere near prepared. I apologized profusely. And it was not enough." His hand went to his scar. The flame scar that covered his left eye and ear.

Katara took a sudden, sharp breath, memory rising like a tide in her. She'd offered to heal that scar once. To take away that mark that made him recognizable to everyone as The Face of the Enemy. If she'd used that water from the mystic pool on him, it would have been over. Aang would have died. Toph had said that Zuko had been speaking sincerely when he'd first approached them. And he had, in fact, tried to stop the assassin Sokka called Combustion Man through peaceful means before being forced to dispatch him permanently. It could all still be a trick to gain trust, her thoughts whispered. "That's how you became the banished prince," Katara murmured, as the pieces began to fall into place. "He set you a task he--everyone--thought impossible. The Avatar 100 years gone, he thought there was no way to --" she stopped, hands going to her face. "His own son!" 

Zuko simply nodded, not bothering to elaborate. She'd come to the conclusion on her own.

"And because the Avatar hadn't come out to fight, you thought he must have been born again in the cycle, to the Water tribe, so you came to us?" 

Zuko nodded again. 

Remember, Katara thought to herself, then asked, resuming the sarcasm in her voice, "And this is all meant to make me feel sorry for you? What does any of this have to do with your mother? Your mother who the Fire Nation took from you...!" 

"I'm getting to that, okay?!" Zuko froze, as Katara reacted to the sudden ire in his voice by producing ice needles out of thin air. "This is not an easy story for me to tell. And I have not done so well mastering my emotions as I should have."

That was what had convinced Aang, Katara remembered. She resumed her folded arms stance. "Maybe not," she said, flatly, "But I'm under no obligation to make it easy for you, either, Zuko. After what you've put us all through, you're lucky I'm listening at all." Katara smirked; Toph would be very amused this conversation was taking place. The two had always locked antlers due to stylistic differences, and it rankled the southerner to admit the rich earthbendrix was right about anything because Toph cultivated an attitude problem. "You didn't make it easy for us, so why should I?"

Zuko sighed through his teeth. "Fair point," he admitted. "If I were leading my father's forces to you, they would have been here by now. Azula too, and you know how she loves a fight." 

Katara frowned; "And this is supposed to convince me?"

"I am doing my best here!" Zuko snapped, exasperation finally overcoming him. "I could have helped Azula catch you before Ba Sing Se! Do you remember?! I didn't!" 

"Only because your uncle was hurt!" Katara snapped back, stepping forward again, to get right in his face. "You didn't even let me try to heal him!"

"I know that!" Zuko sighed, the anger fading. "I should have. He would have recovered sooner if I had. But I thought you'd hurt him to get at me. Because I saw the world as I saw myself. Full of rage and fury." 

Katara blinked. He had not only not assisted Azula against Aang. He had stood with them against Azula. And he had left them alone altogether until Ba Sing Se. During which time he'd supposedly freed Appa. Appa had no voice to speak, but his actions certainly spoke well of Zuko having treated the Avatar's mount with kindness. "And the tea shop?'

"What about it?" Zuko asked. "We had to make a living in exile." He wanted to ask her if she wanted to know what happened with his mother or not, but he bit his tongue. 

Katara nodded; she'd been horrified to see them, and run to the palace straight into Azula's trap. But Zuko hadn't even acted like he'd seen her. He'd been smiling, helping fill an order, as if he was just ...living his life. "Go on." 

"The tea shop with my Uncle was the first time in five years I'd been truly happy," Zuko said softly, beginning to pace in front of the fountain. "Before that, only while my mother was around. And if my father is to be believed, she may still be alive. But he banished her, and has made no attempt to discover if she lives." He swallowed hard; emotion rising in him. Grief and anger. "All this time chasing the Avatar in hopes of pleasing my father, and I could have been with my mother instead if she's still out there." 

"He banished his own wife?!" Katara's mouth dropped open. "That's ...cold. I didn't think the Fire Lord capable of something like that...before I met Azula. Now I know anything is possible. But why? Did she show compassion too?"

"Yes. To me." Zuko's hands rose and his fingers dragged through his hair. "Before the situation with the Agni Kai...there was discord in my family."

No surprise there, thought Katara with wry bitterness. Toph had said something about how messed up Zuko's upbringing had to have been. "How so?" 

"After my uncle in Ba Sing Se," Zuko replied, turning his gaze back to her, and letting his hands fall to his sides again. "He'd sieged that city for so long." Nearly two years. "And had come home in disgrace after the death of his son in the battle." 

An expression of shame and grief crossed Zuko's face. "My sister--" and there was no mistaking the hatred and pain on that word, Katara observed. "She called him a coward and a loser for giving up the siege and coming home in disgrace. She had been saying all along that our father would make a better Fire Lord because Uncle was too gentle. I said Uncle deserved to grieve the loss of his only son. But my father apparently agreed with Azula. That coming home in disgrace, with his bloodline ended, there was no reason for him to succeed my grandfather, Azulon, as Fire Lord."

"To hear Azula tell it -- because I could not bear to watch -- Azulon was enraged that my father dared suggest that Grandfather betray Uncle this way. He said then that Father should know the same pain Iroh knew. The loss of his son. Azula came to tell me that Father was coming to kill me to earn his position as Fire Lord in defiance of the proper birth order." 

Katara stared in disbelief as Zuko spoke. For his part, the fallen Fire Prince simply gazed at her. This wound had healed over, nicely, when he'd faced his father during the eclipse. "I don't know if it was true or not. Azula always lies." Another truth; Toph had told the remaining kids escaping on Appa's back that the fire princess lied so easily that even Toph's earthbending vibration detection couldn't sense a skipped heartbeat. "But that was the last night I saw my mother. And the last time I saw my father was a few days before I came here. He told me my mother had done vicious things to protect me, and that he'd banished her. My best chance of finding her alive rests with you. But more than that--" 

Zuko dared venture the faintest hint of an apologetic smile. "Having traveled the world on my fool's errand, I know my father lied as well. We were not bringing the great way of the Fire Nation to a world of barbarians. We were oppressors. Destroyers. Enslavers. People who thought well of me when I was simply Lee the Stranger? Their opinions of me shifted like fire to water when they knew me to be Zuko, son of Ursa and Ozai, Prince of the Fire Nation. My mother..." He sighed. "If she lives, she must weep every night knowing what her husband and her foolish son turned the world into. If she does not live, I owe it to her memory to make right my part in it." 

To his astonishment, Katara's eyes were bright with unshed tears. Only a Waterbending master's will held them back. "And I owe it to her grandfather's memory, to help balance the world." He extended a hand. "I know I have given you only this as reason to believe in me. I know. But I am trying to do right now."

"And?" Katara said, with a bit less venom on her tongue.

"And if I did fail in my struggle to do right, you would be in your rights to do as you warned me you would do," Zuko's voice had taken on a solemn note. "But I will not falter. My Uncle, I would shame him to do so. My mother, alive or dead, would be dishonored if I stepped on a path away from her again. I would fail the world and myself if I obstructed the Avatar again, and tread dirt on the honor of teaching him Firebending." 

"I think I am beginning to believe you," Katara said, cautiously. "You told me in Ba Sing Se you had changed. I was so hurt by what your sister did, that I painted you with the same brush when you stood with her. I almost drowned you then and there." 

Zuko shrugged in reaction to this. "I'm...thankful you didn't. I wouldn't have had the chance to make amends. And although you didn't get the chance -- thank you for being willing to try." His fingers went to his scar, finishing his thought without words.

"Thank your Uncle," Katara said, a bit less flatly and sharply than anything she'd said in the prvious twenty minutes. "He told Aang and my brother there was good in you. And ...I have seen it myself, yes. In ... small increments." She gave him a faint smile, and was surprised to see he returned it, genuinely. "I suppose you can thank Toph and Appa as well, though I'm sure Toph is going to knock you all over this temple before we're ready to take on your father again."

Zuko bent and made a formal bow to Katara. "Thank you, Waterbender Katara, for hearing me out." 

"It will still require time before I trust you entirely," Katara replied, inclining her head. "But you came and told me this within minutes of my announcing my intentions, when I could have attacked you at that moment. You braved the consequences of my feelings toward you to properly explain yourself."

"I know I didn't do a good job the first two times. I've never been good with doing anything but fighting before. I'm fortunate I didn't drive Uncle away." He turned to walk away at that point, taking his time. The memory of her temper and tirade was still fresh, and he made no sudden moves.

Katara watched him go; once he had vanished up a corridor beyond her sight, she turned and began to walk to clear her head. The moon rose behind her. She sought the broken ruins where Zuko had fought Combustion Man, and settled there in the area the rest of their group avoided. The moon climbed in the sky, and she weighed her history and knowledge. The decision had been made, of course, but her trust in Zuko would make it easier for the others. They probably could not afford tension. Katara sighed; she knew they couldn't. The last time they'd allowed their differences to become explosive, Azula had nearly killed them all. 

"Waterbender Katara." 

Katara sat up, startled. "Who's there?!"

There was a faint red and white shimmer against the silvery aura of the moon. It resolved, as she watched, into the long flowing robes and silver hair of Avatar Roku, the previous Avatar in the cycle. "A-Avatar Roku?" She shook her head, and sat up straight, attempting to give him respectful attention. He was appearing to her, and not to Aang. She'd seen Hei Bai before, of course, the Painted Lady, and Avatar Kiyoshi had addressed an entire village; but this was the first time a previous Avatar had ever spoken directly without going through Aang.

"Are you surprised?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"You have been Aang's dearest friend and you have been the one to hold the group together. But I sense you still are conflicted about the newest person to join you."

"Y-Yes." Katara was embarassed to admit it. "I know that the previous Avatar was yourself -- a Firebender -- and we met Jeong Jeong...so I know good must exist in your people." 

"Indeed," Roku's spirit mused calmly. "And your acquaintance with the children must have been positive for you to permit Aang's party." 

"Yes," Katara answered, a bit more composed. "That's all true. But something important must be involved for you to come to me directly?"

Roku chuckled. "More important than the fate of the world? More important than defeating Ozin before the comet?" 

Katara blinked, and her eyes widened. "I'm being selfish, you're saying."

"No. You're being cautious in the face of your experiences with Zuko. But let me set your mind at ease." The spirit drifted closer. "The change of heart in Prince Zuko is a genuine one. His Uncle, whom you notice is not with him, drew to his attention certain truths, that helped him see his role had to be as an agent of balance. I believe his Uncle will be joining you soon, but I believe telling you now will help you decide he truly is the changed young man he tells you he is."

Katara remained attentive, gazing up at the translucent spirit. "Of course. Your wisdom is welcomed and appreciated." 

"I know." Roku chuckled again. "And yours has guided Aang well until now. I would like it to help guide my great-grandson as he becomes the man I know he can be." So saying, Roku dissipated as if a stiff breeze had blown him apart. "I am certain you are equal to the task." 

"Of course, Avatar Roku," Katara said into the wind. "I --" she paused. "Your great-grandson?!"

There wasn't even a whisper of Roku's voice left on the night. 

The Waterbendrix rose and made an ice-slide back down to the intact part of the temple, shaken and astonished. Jeong Jeong had said that Roku had appeared to him when Aang had asked him to teach firebending. And now he had appeared to Katara, to make sure she remembered that their goal was the most important thing to them all. 

She knocked on Zuko's door. 

He answered, shirtless, and dreamy-eyed. "Waterbender Katara," he said, in a surprised whisper. 

"Just Katara," she corrected him. "Appa has vouched for you. And Toph has vouched for you. Your uncle has as well. And that was not good enough for me. You bared your heart and showed me your pain, and I was willing to let that not be good enough either." 

Zuko just gazed at her, uncertain. Her body language had changed; she was no longer tensed to attack him. "But it is?"

"Now that your great-grandfather has vouched for me, I have no recourse but to give you the benefit of the doubt. I'm sorry I have no more water from the Northern Water Tribe to show you my own good intentions, but I believe you now." 

Katara turned and walked away, leaving him to stare after her in astonishment. She paused once to glance over her shoulder at him, calling, "Good night, Zuko." 

"G-Good night."

Zuko turned to bow to the picture of his uncle before returning to lie on his pallet. The Waterbendrix had had a change of heart, allowing herself to believe in his.

A weight eased off Zuko's heart, and he slipped into the easiest sleep he'd had in months. 

"Well done, Zuko," Roku murmured, materializing briefly, before vanishing altogether.


End file.
